Monday, March 31, 2014

I don't understand why anyone would pay over $30/pound for the privilege of brewing one cup at a time. Brew a whole pot, throw the rest in the sink and both your bank account and the environment are still better off.

The single serve coffee pods popular with office kitchens and harried home coffee makers pack a convenient punch of caffeine in each of their foil-topped cups, and they've become a big hit since they hit the market a few years ago. Popularized by the Keurig brand, the cups have dramatically increased in popularity, more than tripling sales since 2011. But with all that convenience comes the dark side of disposal, with gargantuan amounts of pod trash generated annually.

Sunday, March 30, 2014

The only better compensated public radio CEO I could track down is WNYC 's Laura Walker, who makes $530,983. For what it's worth, Gawker has called Walker's compensation "high" and "out of whack with the rest of the station's salary structure."

Put your water bottle on that little gray pad under the spout in the back, and it automatically fills in seconds.

Simple enough, but this is probably the best new piece of gym
equipment in the last 20 years. No longer will you wait behind the person painfully filling their giant water bottle from a trickle out of the regular fountain.

Saturday, March 29, 2014

Fortunately, I am extremely wary of just about any email that I'm not expecting. And in my case, I know for a fact that I have blocked In-App purchase religiously on every device we own. A $200 charge on one's credit card courtesy of a couple of pre-teen kids buying "brains" will make one vigilant for the rest of one's life. Apple refunded that charge with an apology, that crappy game was swiftly deleted, and I've not had a problem since. All of which is just a prologue for the story here, which is this phishing email I received yesterday:

Dear iTunes account owner,

Apple is committed to providing parents and kids with a great experience on the App Store. Wereview all app content before allowing it on our store, provide a wide range of age-appropriatecontent, and include parental controls in iOS to make it easy for parents to restrict or disableaccess to content.

We’ve heard from some customers that it was too easy for their kids to make in-app purchases.As a result, we’ve improved controls for parents so they can better manage their children’spurchases, or restrict them entirely. Additionally, we are offering refunds in certain cases.

Our records show that you made some in-app purchases, and if any of these were unauthorized purchases by a minor, you might be eligible for a refund from Apple.

Please follow the steps below to submit a refund request:

It is true that this can be a problem. But you'll have a much bigger problem on your hands if you click on anything in this deceitful spammer's message. Now of course, I'm not going to include the offending links. But the graphics, the spoofed email address, even the font all look pretty professional. I'm sure they're getting quite a few people with this evil ruse. Don't be one of them.

If you do want to be sure that the good people at Apple are offering you an unsolicited attempt to clawback a child's purchase, just open up iTunes, go to My Account, and look at your recent purchases. But for god's sake don't click a link in some unexpected email.

Friday, March 28, 2014

My first rock concert was 20 Years of Tull at the Mann Music Center in 1988. Saw them again for the Rock Island Tour in 1991. Then in 2010 we took my dad, a huge Tull Fan, to see them one more time down in Atlantic City. Anyway, a great band.

Mr. Samson, a prominent lawyer and close Christie ally, declined to be interviewed by the lawyers who were commissioned by the governor. . The report has been criticized by Democrats as not being thorough and designed soley to exonerate Mr. Christie. Mr. Christie said that Mr. Samson had raised the subject of retiring well before the scandal erupted and there was nothing to indicate that he had done anything wrong. “I think that his role was not central in any of these things, nor has it ever been alleged that his role was central,” Mr. Christie said. “He is 74 years old and he is tired,” he said. Mr. Samson, who was appointed by Mr. Christie to the authority’s board in 2011, issued a statement shortly after Mr. Christie made the announcement. “Over the past months, I have shared with the Governor my desire to conclude my service to the PANYNJ,” Mr. Samson said in thestatement. “The timing is now right, and I am confident that the Governor will put new leadership in place to address the many challenges ahead.” Mr. Samson came under scrutiny after emails were made public showing that Mr. Samson derided his New York counterpart at the authority, who ordered the lanes reopened.

Things get curiouser and curiouser. This could be a fun-filled retirement for Mr. Samson. Did I mention that Chris Christie will never be President?

"Brooklyn's population has grown 3.5 percent in just three years, according to new census data, The New York Daily News reported. That makes Brooklyn the fastest growing of any of the boroughs. It is also one of the fastest-growing counties in the state. We added 87,400 people, for a total of 2,568,435. The growth is mostly due to immigrants, who settle mostly in Brooklyn and Queens, plus a slowdown of people moving out of New York City, according to a story in The New York Times."

Growth can yield a lot of benefits, or it can yield overcrowding, stretched services and ultimately, a retrenchment. Proper planning and foresight is needed to favor the former over the latter.

The well-reasoned decision by a regional director of the NLRB was premised on a flat-out rejection of the notion that big-time college sports are amateur pursuits by “student-athletes” who are students first, and athletes a distant second.

The NLRB found the opposite to be the case – that in every way, the university and its scholarship athletes have an employer/employee relationship where academics and student status play little, if any role. The NLRB pointed to the following for support:

● These sports programs bring in a massive amount of revenues to their universities, with Northwestern generating $235 million over the past 10 years through ticket sales, television contracts, merchandise sales and licensing agreements.

● In exchange for the athletic services they provide, players receive substantial compensation in the form of scholarships which can amount to as much as $76,000 per year in the form of tuition, fees, room, board and books.

● The coaching staff has “strict and exacting control” over “every aspect of the players’ private lives” throughout the entire year.

● The players devote 40 to 50 hours per week to their sports duties – with academics often taking a back seat – despite the NCAA’s rules that are supposed to limit to 20 hours a week the amount of time athletes play or practice.

The NLRB’s 24-page ruling severely undermines the NCAA’s claims that its collegiate athletes are all “amateurs.” This spells trouble for the NCAA in defending its practices in numerous pending antitrust cases, where the NCAA has touted maintaining “amateurism” as the primary procompetitive justification for its rules restricting collegiate athletes’ compensation.

To be sure, the NLRB’s ruling does not end the controversy over the NCAA’s “amateurism” rules. Northwestern University will undoubtedly appeal the decision. The ruling only covers scholarship athletes. And, it has no direct implications for state universities, which are governed by their own set of labor laws.

Thursday, March 27, 2014

The Long Island College Hospital (LICH) saga continues: A panel rating the bids for the Cobble Hill hospital has been told to ignore some unauthorized last-minute instructions by SUNY and DOH, and head back into sequestration.

After attorneys for LICH supporters raised hell on Wednesday about alleged interference by SUNY and the state Department of Health in the voting process, the parties hashed out an agreement to extend the deadline to give panelists a chance to reevaluate the proposals.Panelists were supposed to submit their votes on Wednesday, March 26, at 3 p.m. The new deadline is Monday, March 31 at 5 p.m. Court approval of this extension is still necessary.

A court document instructs the panel to “disregard” what they were told during an unmonitored conference call made by SUNY and DOH officials on Monday, a day and a half before their votes were due.

After the panelists’ sequestration ended on Wednesday, attorney Jim Walden of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher was told about the conference call.In a letter he fired off late Wednesday to attorneys for SUNY and DOH, he alleged that the state agencies, which have been fighting for a year to close LICH, might have fed incorrect information to panel members about the odds of getting a hospital license from the state, and did not inform panel members that a temporary permit could be obtained under Public Health Law 2806-a.In his letter he alleged that the agencies incorrectly instructed the panel members that bids proposing full-service hospitals “could not receive regulatory authority to take over operations at LICH.”According to insiders, at least one panel member refused to turn in their vote after receiving these instructions from the state agencies."

This is cringeworthy, embarrassing stuff. To use a totally inadequate analogy that is nevertheless universally understandable to children: It's even worse to take the cookie after you've been told "no" than to take it without asking.

The entire article by Grim is worth reading and addresses other good points:

Obama's assertion also hinges on how broadly one construes the word "our." Taxpayers on the one hand are worse off, as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq haveadded $2 trillion to the national debt, according to one study. But contractors reaped tremendous gains, and Halliburton -- a company often associated with the invasion, of which former Vice President Dick Cheney served as CEO -- saw its stock price surge from under $10 a share to over $50, before falling along with the rest of the market in 2008. (It has since recovered.)

In the most technologically advanced countries, filing a tax return is free, easy and fast: Instead of taxpayers painstakingly calculating figures themselves, the government provides estimates of what they owe based on the very bank records and wages it already collects. Intuit, maker of the popular tax preparation software, TurboTax, has funnelled millions to oppose every effort to make tax day less painful. Intuit has spent $11.5 million lobbying the federal government — more than Apple or Amazon. Former California Senator, Tom Campbell, who felt Intuit’s power during his proposal for an easy-file system in California, wrote that he “never saw as clear a case of lobbying power putting private interests first over public benefit.”

Between 1964 and 1973, the United States dropped around 2.5 million tons of bombs on Laos. While the American public was focused on the war in neighboring Vietnam, the US military was waging a devastating covert campaign to cut off North Vietnamese supply lines through the small Southeast Asian country. The nearly 600,000 bombing runs delivered a staggering amount of explosives: The equivalent of a planeload of bombs every eight minutes for nine years, or a ton of bombs for every person in the country—more than what American planes unloaded on Germany and Japan combined during World War II. Laos remains, per capita, the most heavily bombed country on earth.

"Over at the Atlantic, professor Garrett Epps has just written in defense of Ginsburg. You should read the whole piece, but two important points he makes are worth repeating: Ginsburg plays a crucially important role in the Roberts Court as the senior justice on the liberal bloc, not just in terms of assigning opinions but in terms of writing them. If anything, Ginsburg has been stronger in recent years than ever and has been a crisper, more urgent voice for women's rights, minority rights, affirmative action, and the dignity of those who often go unseen at the high court than ever before. She has gone from rarely reading her dissents from the bench to doing so with great frequency, calling out the majority for what she sees as grave injustices and proving that her voice is both fiery and indispensible. Telling her that her work is awesome, but it's time to move on is tantamount to saying that a liberal is a liberal and that Ginsburg brings nothing to the table that another Obama appointee will not replicate. That analysis suffers from exactly the same realpolitik flaw Ginsburg's critics ascribe to her:"

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

You see those post-war years, ending with Reagan? That was the lifespan of The American Dream.

Paul Krugmanfinally got around to posting this clearer visual representation of wealth inequality of the United States. It is striking that our New Gilded Age is looking so familiar, both in the conspicuous consumption of the few, and the percentage of the nation's wealth they have hoarded amongst themselves. This is not sustainable. The rubber band needs to snap back, the pendulum to swing back, the wave to crest and recede, pick your metaphor. Somethings got to give, or we're going back to landed gentry and aristocracy in all but name.

If Saez and Zucman are right, and I have every reason to believe that they are, even those upset by trends in US inequality are living in the past. They still think Gordon Gekko is the problem — but if you look at my first chart, you see that things have moved on a lot since 1987, when Wall Street came out. Back then scrappy self-made predators ruled; now we’re much more likely to be talking about their children and heirs.

Patrimonial capitalism is already here, to a much greater extent than people realize.

AT&T Senior Executive Vice President of Legislative Affairs James Cicconi has written a monumentally stupid attack on Reed Hasting's call for Net Neutrality. Cicconi says, "there is no free lunch, and there's also no cost-free delivery of streaming movies. Someone has to pay that cost. Mr. Hastings' arrogant proposition is that everyone else should pay but Netflix." What Cicconi ignores is that Netflix is paying its ISPs to be connected to the Internet. And AT&T's customers are paying to be connected to the Internet. And AT&T's customers are asking to have the service they are paying for to be connected to the service Netflix is paying for. AT&T is then demanding that Netflix pay it a bribe in order to carry out the service that its customers are paying for. If you're an AT&T customer paying for a 4MB/s DSL line, you have entered into a commercial arrangement whereby AT&T delivers you the bytes you ask for as quickly and efficiently as it can. You're not entering into an arrangement whereby AT&T can, if it notices that many of its customers really like a service, charge that service for the privilege of giving AT&T customers what they're already paying for.

An analysis of Port Authority and Federal Aviation Administration data by The Star-Ledger shows that though the agency has expanded its wildlife management program considerably since 2009, wildlife collisions with aircraft at New Jersey airports have not declined. Though most wildlife strikes do not cause any issue, several planes arriving or departing from New Jersey airports typically do sustain damage each year. An aircraft at one of the Port Authority’s New Jersey airports collides with an animal, typically a bird, about once every two days — a figure that has remained virtually unchanged every year since 2008, the year before the Flight 1549 crash. During that time, however, the number of animals — from European starlings to foxes to the threatened American kestrel — killed by the Port Authority has skyrocketed. In Newark, for example, just 10 animals were killed by the agency in 2008, while 1,267 were killed two years later. “It’s a response to an oversensitive issue with respect to the public,” said David Mizrahi, vice president for research and monitoring at the New Jersey Audubon Society. “People want to understand that they’re out there doing something. But there are several ways to get at the wildlife hazard problem. I think airfields are a little slow on the uptake in coming around to them.” The Port Authority asserts that the vast majority of animals are relocated through nonlethal means and lethal measures are generally used only when all other means have been exhausted.

The policy isn't working. Time to re-assess and stop killing all of this wildlife if there isn't a valid purpose for it.

Mike Wallace told the helicopter crew's story in the gut-wrenching 60 Minutes segment called "Back to My Lai"… which was first broadcast in 1998. That same year, the U.S. military officially honored the crew's actions in My Lai. Not present was the crew's third crew member, Glenn Andreotta, who was shot and killed in action three weeks after the massacre. It had taken 30 years for the U.S. government to recognize the three men. But when Thompson and Colburn first returned home after Vietnam, it was a much different story. They weren't received as heroes, but as traitors. Thompson testified about the massacre in the U.S. government's court-martial trials, but according to author Trent Angers, two Congressmen who were working in concert with Nixon, managed to seal that testimony in order to damage the cases against the culprits of My Lai. Whether it was one of the "dirty tricks" Nixon prescribed in Haldeman's 1969 meeting note is a matter of debate for historians… Thompson died in 2006, and Colburn says he was in the room with him during his final moments. With his friend gone, Colburn says he feels an obligation to carry the torch, and speak publicly about what happened in My Lai that day. But he misses having Thompson at his side.

A neighborhood institution, Giuseppe Caputo will be sorely missed. I agree with Katia, he was heartbroken after his wife passed. My condolences to the family. I am very sorry to have missed the opportunity to pay my respects.

How sad. Guiseppe Caputo, the founder of Caputo's Fine Foods, everyone's favorite Italian gourmet store at 460 Court Street, passed away on March 21st. A notice has been taped to the rolled down gate and a big bouquet of flowers has been placed right in front of of the store. Many may remember Guiseppe. For years, he was busy in the store making fresh pasta and mozzarella alongside his wife. Later, his two sons joined the business.

Two weeks ago, the owners of the Prospect Park Residence assisted living facility told the 130 seniors living there that they would be evicting them, with just 90 days notice.

To be honest, this is the cruelest, most heartless act I have seen in my time as a City Council Member. It has caused real trauma for the residents, who are our neighbors and family members. Many have been there for years. Quite a few are over 100 years old. There is already a severe shortage of senior housing in our city (and almost none nearby).Please sign the residents’ petition to the owner, calling on him to halt the closure.

As far as I can tell, this decision is simply based on greed. The owners were receiving a “J-51” tax abatement for the past 15 years, which protected the tenants. But it has now expired (which they knew it would), allowing them to consider selling off the building for condos, which would make more money than caring for seniors.

The residents and families – with our support – are fighting back. We are working with them to explore legal action. The owners kept bringing in new residents (and talking about “aging in place”) even after they filed an application to close. And the NYS Department of Health considered and approved the closure plan in secret, without public notice.This weekend, residents were out petitioning at the Grand Army Plaza green-market, and hundreds of neighbors signed a petition to the owner, Haysha Deitsch, calling on him to put a halt to this cruel act.

Presentation and discussion with a representative for the Department of Sanitation on the City's expansion of the organic waste collection program which will be affecting a portion of the BK6 district (generally bounded by Union Street-Prospect Park West-15th Street and the Gowanus Canal) in May 2014.

Presentation and review of New York State Senate Bill S205-2013 (companion to A2064-2013) by a representative for State Senator Daniel Squadron (sponsor), an act to amend the alcoholic beverage control law, in relation to making the provisions governing the various on-premises liquor licenses consistent with respect to public interest factors that may be considered by the state liquor authority when evaluating the merits of a license application.

Presentation and review of a new on-premises liquor license application submitted to the State Liquor Authority on behalf of Sun Pok Pok at 127 Columbia Street (between Kane/Irving Streets).

Presentation and review of a new on-premises liquor license application submitted to the State Liquor Authority on behalf of Bruklay Inc. at 440 Bergen Street (southeast corner of 5th Avenue).

Presentation and review of a new on-premises liquor license application submitted to the State Liquor Authority on behalf of Black Sheep Pub at 428 Bergen Street (between 4th/5th Avenues).

Presentation and review of a new on-premises liquor license application submitted to the State Liquor Authority on behalf of 376 Court Street (between President/Carroll Streets).

Presentation and review of an alteration to an on-premises liquor license application submitted to the State Liquor Authority on behalf of May Elizabeth LLC at 370 5th Avenue(between 5th/6th Streets).

Presentation and review of an alteration to an on-premises liquor license application submitted to the State Liquor Authority on behalf of Loki Lounge at 305 5th Avenue(between 2nd/3rd Streets).

Presentation and review of the renewal of an on-premises liquor license application submitted to the State Liquor Authority on behalf of Huitres NYC Inc. dba Buschenschank at 320 Court Street (between Degraw/Sackett Streets).

Presentation and review of the renewal of an unenclosed sidewalk café permit application submitted to the Department of Consumer Affairs on behalf of 283 Smith Street Food Corp. dba Zaytoons at 283 Smith Street (between De Grew/Sackett Streets) to permit 5 tables and 18 seats.

Presentation and review of the renewal of an unenclosed sidewalk café permit application submitted to the Department of Consumer Affairs on behalf of Cafe Steinhof Inc. dba Cafe Steinhof at 422 7th Avenue (between 13th/14th Streets) to permit 8 tables and 15 seats.

So let me make the obvious point, just in case anyone missed it: the "pivot" of 2010 — when all the Very Serious People decided that the danger from debt trumped any and all concern for job creation — was an utter disaster, economic and human. It was even a disaster in fiscal terms, because a permanently depressed economy will cost far more in revenue than was saved by slashing the deficit by a few percent of GDP in the short term. Now, you might think that this post should be titled The Mistake of 2010 — but that would only be appropriate if it were truly an honest error. It wasn't. Some of the austerians were self-consciously exploiting deficit panic to promote a conservative agenda; some were slipping into deficit-scolding rather than dealing with our actual problems because it felt comfortable; some were just going along for the ride, saying what everyone else was saying. Hardly anyone in the deficit-scold camp engaged in hard thinking and careful assessment of the evidence.

Sunday, March 23, 2014

I received powerful email from our good friend, Cobble Hill's stalwart street safety activist Dave "paco" Abraham this week. It's a personal story about why we need Vision Zero now . . . and links to a comprehensive article about Vision Zero:

I was biking back home from Queens to Brooklyn after a dinner to celebrate my mom's bday. An idiot behind the wheel wasn't looking (or caring) and slammed into me as I rode through the Montauk & Sutter intersection with the green light and right of way in my favor. The driver stopped, adrenaline picked me up, the driver sped away, and I fell back down staring at asphalt, writhing in pain. The driver was never found; there was never even an NYPD investigation. I was in the ER for days, hospitalized for a full week, and KO'ed for many months ... but still, I was thankful it wasn't more severe. Sadly, we all know in the blink of an eye collisions can be much more severe. A life is easily lost when two tons of steel comes barreling around a corner recklessly.

WIth that heavy on my mind today, I urge you all to spend some time thinking about how far the city has come in the past 5 years and how fantastic it is that with your tireless advocacy, Vision Zero isn't an outlandish pipedream... it's our city's policy.

Below is a lengthy, but comprehensive article on the effort to get us where we are and where we need to be. It's the most comprehensive thing I've read in ages and has strong statements from electeds and activists alike, many of whom are also within our own TA BK efforts (Hilda, Michelle, Miller) or that of simailr organizations (Keegan w/ ROW, etc).

Saturday, March 22, 2014

The State University of New York has received nine responses to the Long Island College Hospital (LICH) Request for Proposals that "meet the minimum mandatory requirements," SUNY spokesperson David Doyle announced late Friday night.

Four of the responses call for keeping LICH in operation as a full-service hospital. A fifth would build a 149,000 square foot "vanilla box" space capable of holding an ER, intensive care area and 100 beds and leasing it at a low rate to a future hospital operator. The other four proposals would incorporate walk-in urgent care centers, stand-alone ERs and other medical facilites, but not full service hospitals.

The news was music to the ears of members of a coalition who have been fighting tor a year to keep LICH open. Their court battle resulted in SUNY reissuing the RFP, this time rewritten to attract full service hospital operators to bid for LICH.

“The community groups knew there would be more full-service hospital proposals in a reformed process. The bidders had access to the same evidence we had and they concluded as we did: LICH is indeed economically viable,” said Jeff Strabone, spokesperson for the Cobble Hill Association.

Walking up Court Street this morning I saw a truck unloading something next to the huge scaffolding around the Brooklyn School for Global Studies at Baltic Street. It wasn't until I was right on top of them that I realized it had nothing to do with construction. It turns out Court Street is getting some brand-spanking new recycling cans for paper and glass/aluminum/plastic to go along with the battered waste cans we already had.

These guys were good sports.

Looks like they already hit the other side of the street.

Given the perpetually overflowing waste baskets, this is a good step. Free up space in the garbage can and divert more waste to recycling programs. It's a win-win. I'm still hoping for some BigBelly cans though.

Friday, March 21, 2014

A little more on the Move-NY forum this morning, including the three minute video the organization produced to introduce the fair tolling plan:

I ran into Streetsblog reporter Stephen Miller at the event this morning, and I see his article is up:

After years of meetings and tweaks, the Move NY fair toll campaign launched this morning with a simple message: With AAA and trucking interests at the table beside transit advocates, reforming New York’s broken toll system actually has a shot. It’s a different beast than the congestion pricing plan that Mayor Bloomberg pushed for six years ago, with more obvious benefits for New Yorkers who don’t live in Manhattan.

The coalitions are shaping up differently this time, backers noted during a series of panel discussions this morning. ”Last time around there was a feeling that this was being shoved down people’s throats,” said Move NY campaign director Alex Matthiessen. “We have staunch opponents of previous pricing plans with us.”

“It’s a pleasure working with the other side here for a change, instead of being in our own corners,” said AAA New York’s Jon Corlett. Gene Russianoff, staff attorney for the Straphangers Campaign, compared sitting down with AAA to Nixon visiting China.

Why are these groups willing to work together? The Move NY plan, developed by “Gridlock” Sam Schwartz, has some big carrots for motorists while still reducing congestion and funding transit. The plan would charge everyone driving into Manhattan below 60th Street, while outer-borough crossings with few transit options nearby would see a toll cut. It also asks Manhattanites to pay up by removing the borough’s parking tax rebate and adding a surcharge to taxi trips. The plan would raise almost $1.5 billion annually, with a quarter of it going to road and bridge maintenance. The rest would go to transit in the form of both capital funds and operating assistance.

There were no real carrots in Michael Bloomberg's proposals. The fair tolling plan significantly (up to 48%) reduces tolls for interborough travellers outside of the Central Business District (CBD) in Manhattan below 60th Street. And the addition of tolls on the "free" East River Bridges stands to significantly reduce traffic and attendant negative impacts to the local streets in Brooklyn and Queens. This is a terrific plan.

I think sensationalized headlines and the nationalization of local news is most responsible for the dramatic change in parenting roles in the last generation.. A horror story out of say, Oregon, which is purely a local story, becomes national news if it is prurient enough. And that's repeated day in, day out: a non-stop montage of every parent's nightmares. As a result, while the US is indisputably a safer place today, the perception is the opposite.

It's hard to absorb how much childhood norms have shifted in just one generation. Actions that would have been considered paranoid in the '70s-walking third-graders to school, forbidding your kid to play ball in the street, going down the slide with your child in your lap-are now routine. In fact, they are the markers of good, responsible parenting. One very thorough study of "children's independent mobility," conducted in urban, suburban, and rural neighborhoods in the U.K., shows that in 1971, 80 percent of third-graders walked to school alone. By 1990, that measure had dropped to 9 percent, and now it's even lower. When you ask parents why they are more protective than their parents were, they might answer that the world is more dangerous than it was when they were growing up. But this isn't true, or at least not in the way that we think. For example, parents now routinely tell their children never to talk to strangers, even though all available evidence suggests that children have about the same (very slim) chance of being abducted by a stranger as they did a generation ago. Maybe the real question is, how did these fears come to have such a hold over us? And what have our children lost -- and gained -- as we've succumbed to them?

I find now with kids in the house we are part of the trend. I was a pretty free-range kid, yet as parents we have almost 100% supervision.

It's really weird, when you stop to think about it. And I'm sure this is a healthy state of affairs.

I'll have more on this over the weekend, but over the last year the Move-NY team has seriously streamlined and focused Sam Schwartz's equitable tolling plan into a truly compelling platform. The plan addresses the historical quirks that result in our current highly unfair and illogical tolling scheme by wiping the slate clean and implementing a tolling scheme that would distribute the burden fairly throughout the region.

A rational toll distribution would raise an additional $1.5 Billion while cutting tolls at crossings further from the CBD and/or poorly served by transit.

Move-NY will take the rest of the year to solicit further input and gather support from stakeholders around the region. There's something in this plan for everyone, and already the group has built a broad coalition. I have a hard time imagining that the Move-NY plan or something very close to what was presented does not pass in 2015.

Long-suffering transportation planners and transit enthusiasts may finally have found a sustainable stream of funding for state of good repair and improvements to NYC's transportation networks. Stay tuned for more.

So is it better to have Ben Nelson, Joe Lieberman and Zell Miller in a 49-seat minority, or is it better to replace them with better Democrats in a 55-seat Democratic majority? Only morons would argue for the former, but apparently, that's what Third Way wants to be.

The Third Way, from what I can tell, used to be called Country Club Republicans with an added modern dash of libertarianism and more new money. Think white elites in a 10k a month apartment in NYC drinking coffee while looking out over the city as they listen to vacuous TED lectures while doing the NYT crossword puzzle. They are ok with the gays and abortion, as long as the details remain at arms length and don't get brought up over dinner, and the minorities and the underclss don't bother them so much, because then they can visit "authentic" ethnic restaurants in Brooklyn and Queen on the one day a week they venture out of Manhattan. But even then they are only ok with that so long as Times Square doesn't have too many needles and porn sites and stop and frisk is still going on to keep them safe and the Hamptons are still clean and lily white. They basically have the same sense of entitlement as the rest of the upper crust in the GOP, and they know they are better than the rest of us, just the really over the top Jesus stuff bothers them, and they vent their fascism in other ways. See also, Mayor Bloomberg.

Thursday, March 20, 2014

Having read Firewall, I think Lawrence Walsh could have been a lot more aggressive as a prosecutor, but he was generally as honest broker as you could expect a Republican appointed by Ed Meese to possibly be.

What you really take away from the book, besides the lesson that the rot we have today has been festering for twenty years, is that Bob Dole and Dick Cheney are total scumbags. When I read the book about 10 years ago I already knew that about Cheney, but didn't yet appreciate that fact about Bob Dole. Also helped round out my pre-existing contempt for Judge Laurence Silberman.

Chris Quinn and Bloomberg did everything possible to kill, delay, and water this down. But in the end they lost, and the working people of New York won. We all win, actually, when sick people aren't forced to go to work. For example the coughing guy sitting next to you on the subway, or the sneezing one making your lunch.

"The new bill, which will go into effect April 1, will apply to almost all workers at businesses with five or more employees, expanding the right to paid sick leave to 200,000 additional New Yorkers. "April 1st will be day where we'll fundamentally change the lives of hundreds of thousands of New York families," declared the mayor, who added that he could "not be more honored" that the first bill of his administration was the expanded paid sick law. Unlike most bill signings during previous administrations, which took place at ceremonies in City Hall's Blue Room, Mr. de Blasio set up a formal signing desk in a large, empty industrial space inside the building."

The new mayor has riled up all manner of wealthy elites with his proposals. We've seen concerted attacks in NYT's billionaire-owned vanity press from before Day 1. But it was the Polititico interview with Bernie Madoff railing against deBlasio's policies that reminded me of FDR's wonderful speech, relevant excerpt below:

We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace--business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.

They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.

Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me--and I welcome their hatred.

I should like to have it said of my first Administration that in it the forces of selfishness and of lust for power met their match. I should like to have it said of my second Administration that in it these forces met their master.

They lost the election, but they're going to fight progress every step of the way. Welcome their hatred and stick to your principles.

"I'm not a great fan of redistribution of wealth," said the former Upper East Sider when asked about the city's new mayor. (A sign reading, "Inmates are not allowed to handle money," was reportedly posted on a prison vending machine nearby.) Mr. Madoff, who was sentenced to a 150-year sentence in 2009, further said that he'd voted for President Barack Obama in 2008 but, "His policies are too socialist." And Hillary Clinton, the Democratic front-runner to replace Mr. Obama, has earned Mr. Madoff's ire as well. "I certainly wasn't impressed with her as secretary of state," he said. "Our foreign policy is a mess."

I'd wear that as a badge of honor, or at least, totally ignore anything Bernie Madoff had to say about anyone else's character or policy choices.

I have two other meetings this evening and most likely will not be able to attend, but this is an important process and kudos to Brad Lander for re-starting this vital conversation.

City Planning under the Bloomberg administration abandoned the "Gowanus Canal Corridor Framework" (click through for May 2008 slide presentation) study after the NYS DEC referred the Gowanus Canal to EPA for potential superfund designation. Post-Superfund and post-Sandy we need to have an open and frank discussion on the best and most appropriate planning for the Gowanus area.

And tonight's the night for some discussion in that vein. From the invite:It is also very important for anyone who owns business or property in the neighborhood to attend Bridging Gowanus TONIGHT at Wyckoff Gardens Community Center 280 Wyckoff Street (Between Nevins and 3rd ave)

The New York Times finds it newsworthy that UPKNYC has spent some money on the effort to pass Mayor deBlasio's universal pre-k agenda:

Mayor Bill de Blasio’s privately financed campaign to offer prekindergarten to all 4-year-olds in New York City spent nearly $236,000 in January and February, spreading much of the money among the same core group of political consultants behind his winning campaign last year, according to records released on Wednesday.

The horror! None of this is tax money, by the way - it's all raised privately. But the Times sniffs,

For all those efforts, the campaign has fallen significantly short of persuading state leaders to go along with the mayor’s desire to increase taxes on high-earning city residents to pay for universal prekindergarten and after-school programs.

An pro-charter school group has spent $3.6 million on TV ads over the past three weeks attacking Mayor de Blasio — the amount candidates typically spend in three weeks of a heated mayoral primary, an insider with knowledge of the ad buy revealed Wednesday.

Families for Excellent Schools — founded by a deep-pocketed group of current and former financiers — has run a series of ads, including a heart-wrenching spot blaming de Blasio for taking away the “hopes and dreams” of 194 students by blocking Success Academy Harlem Central’s co-location plan.

Eva Moskowitz (often presented in the press as an apolitical educator, which she is not) and her grifting cronies have spent at minimum $3.6 Million dollars in just the last three weeks to attack the new mayor.

And yet, the poor, poor charter schools should never be asked to pay a dime for rent, or to meet the same requirements of public schools. There are plenty of well meaning people, parents mostly, caught up in the charter school campaign. But the people behind the movement have a hidden right-wing agenda that centers on union-busting, rolling back labor protections, privatizing public resources and cannibalizing the public school system.

And the third story, added as this post was in progress: the NY Post (no link for you, Murdoch) is harping on deBlasio's popularity ratings, as if such things exist in a vacuum, and are not the direct result of near constant scurrilous attacks from our billionaire owned vanity press and multi-million dollar smear campaigns from Eva Moskowitz and her band of corporate raiders.

There has never been a more odious stain of a human being than Bill Kristol. Over the loud protests of my wife I cancelled our NYT subscription when they gave him a column. It was the final straw. Anyway, click through for an angry anti-Kristol tirade for the ages.

You are not going to get a more concentrated dose of accurate commentary than what Charles Pierce dealt to Bill Kristol's latest crusade to have other folks die in the name of his shitty ideas:

"You and the rest of your cowardly cohort helped prepare the ground for the worst geopolitical mistake the country has made in 30 years. You fought the battle of the Green Rooms and the think tanks while other people's sons and daughters died for your fantasy of how the world would work if you really were the pimply, adolescent Zeus you see when you look in the mirror every morning."

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

A through look at the current situation by the Brooklyn Eagle, which has been an invaluable source of reporting on the LICH saga:

That wraps phase one for SUNY’s reissued Request for Proposals (RFP), painstakingly drawn up after a ferocious legal battle waged by community members, local officials and employees to keep LICH open as a full service hospital.

The six community organizations who were petitioners in the LICH litigation are sponsoring a public presentation of the proposals submitted by RFP respondents who have accepted their invitation. All are invited to the forum on Tuesday, March 25th, from 6 to 8 p.m. at St. Francis College, Founder’s Hall Auditorium, 180 Remsen Street, Brooklyn Heights.